Occasionally, I get abuse from friends because of my passion for social media. More fool them – this passion’s currently making a group presentation for Vicar School an awful lot less painful than it might have been. In fact, Monday morning saw me finally succumb to Google+. Yes, I realise that it is one of the more pointless of the social networks, but I am very firmly entrenched in the Google world and it was going to be key to an experiment we’re planning as part of the aforementioned presentation. [In a nutshell: next Monday morning will see a 4 person Google+ liturgical hangout for morning prayer…]

In addition to occasional abuse, I also get the odd gem of a link that makes my nerdy heart very, very happy. On Sunday, one such beauty turned up via Twitter – initially I was sceptical, thinking it to be a dig at my geekiness (the tweeter concerned has quite a reputation for such behaviour) – but on further inspection it was revealed to be really quite genius.

It seems that one can use the mathematical search engine Wolfram Alpha to generate a statistical report on your Facebook usage. Social media combined with stats?? Be still my beating heart…

All I had to do was sign-up to Wolfram Alpha, input my Facebook details and within minutes I had a stack of pretty graphs and fascinating facts about my Facebook history. [Oh, and for doubters out there, fear not – this is completely kosher.]

So what have I learned?

For starters, some basic facts about myself – that on Sunday I was 31.09 years old and 10 months, 28 days away from my next birthday.

The programme said it had reviewed 433 posts and I know for a fact that my (nearly) 6 year sojourn in Facebook world has generated many more posts than that. For starters, for a good long while I was a minimum of a status-a-day kind of person, so that’s 365 to begin with. Anyway, it’s still interesting to deduce information from that evaluation, including:

My most-used words in statii are: time (26), last 21) and good (20). Interestingly, ‘birthday’ comes in at #8.

An average of 3.67 people like my posts and an average of 2.54 comments are received per post.

The average length of my posts is 19.09 words and 118 characters. [I’m guessing that stat was significantly higher pre-Twitter.]

69.2% of my Facebook friends are female. (I knew they’d be in the majority, but I am surprised at how high it is.)

58.1% of them are married. (Interestingly the stat is almost identical when split between genders.)

My oldest friend is 48 [actually, that’s the oldest friend who lists their date of birth] and the youngest is 18.

13 of my friends are called Rachel, 8 have the surname Jones. (8 of the friends, not 8 of the Rachels. Don’t think I know any Rachel Joneses…)

The report told me a few things I knew already, like the fact that I post way more statuses than I do photos or links and I hardly post any videos. But it did reveal my posting habits in terms of the time of day and the week when I tend to post:

And what was my most liked post? Oh, how I was longing for something witty and erudite that summed up just what kind of a person I am – but no, my most liked status was this one:

You Facebook Timeline haters are fools – do you know how easy Timeline made it for me to find this? Simples. [Oh, and there’s a long back story to the heckling thing…]

My most commented upon post did make me chuckle though and fortunately there’s a previous blogpost that provides the context for it:

Many of the stats only related to the last year or so, but I did discover which my most commented on photo is – disappointingly, it’s a photo of socked feet from 2007 where we had to guess whose foot was whose, but happily a photo of French advent calendar for cats was joint first. Oh, and this was my most liked photo:

Turns out nothing amuses Facebook more than childhood nostalgia and bad poetry…

The beginning of this week was spent in a Christian Conference frenzy at the Royal Albert Hall for HTB’s annual Leadership Conference. The stats are pretty impressive, present were over 4000 people from 900+ churches and 50+ countries – the RAH was full to bursting. The Queen had even allowed the Royal Box to be used – and HTB used it to seat homeless people and ex-offenders.

Needless to say, getting a large number of Christians of a more evangelical/trendy persuasion together in one room meant that there was a great deal of technology about. When the house lights went out, the hall was lit up by small rectangles and larger rectangles – iPhones and iPads, presumably used for note taking and tweeting (or, in the case of one of my colleagues, buying Olympics tickets). Oh, and Bible reading – at the moment when the room of 4000 was asked to turn to Hebrews 11 the Bible app promptly crashed.

That wasn’t the only way in which the iPads and iPhones impacted the wider world – Twitter went a bit nuts. The number of people tweeting about Tony Blair’s nuggets of wisdom during his interview on Monday morning caused the former PM to enter the world top 10 of trending topics on Twitter. Twitter (and the #htbleadershipconf hashtag) also meant that those not at the conference could engage with it – albeit via the sometimes unsatisfactory and unrepresentative medium of responding to soundbite quotes. My battery was drained by mid afternoon thanks to frenetic Twitter activity…

It therefore seemed appropriate (especially given my existing interest in the subject) that one of my seminar choices was a session on ‘Digital Disciples: How Social Media is Changing the Church’ with Al Gordon. I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d learn anything new – which isn’t me being big headed, more me being aware that I’ve thought a lot about this area already – but I was really impressed by the way in which the session explored social media in terms of its missional value, rather than simply being a marketing tool.

Al had two sets of three points [he’s two years ahead of me at the Vicar Factory and I can tell the preaching classes have made an impact…] which I thought were well worth sharing. Firstly:

Be invitational – ‘come and see’ is happening electronically, so be public in your faith and invite people into it.

Champion Connectivity – move from being a consumer to a contributor in the life of God and the church. We want to connect people with God to enable this process to take place. [An interesting question within this which I think Vicky Beeching’s explored is whether churches should enable/encourage/allow the congregation to tweet during services.]

Mobilise micro-narratives – in a post-modern world, meta-narratives are viewed with incredulity and our own stories have become more important. We have a powerful impact when we can mobilise the stories of the people in our churches. 90% of people trust a peer recommendation compared to 14% who trust advertising – how can we build on this?

Reshape relationships – get yourself online and reconnect with people, enabling them to follow you as you follow Christ.

It challenged me greatly and has even prompted some thoughts regarding my next sermon slot. Watch this space – St George’s might be getting something a little different next month…

Research published today by Tearfund shows the ways in which people are communicating their faith via social media. Of those surveyed, 74% had welcomed ‘the opportunity to reveal their faith on digital platforms’ and nearly half had used Facebook (specifically) as a forum for sharing prayer requests. An average of 80% of respondents (across the age-groups who responded) also said that Facebook and Twitter inspired them to pray for others and specific situations.

It’s a relatively small (212) and self-selecting (the survey was advertised via social networks) sample, but it does show that social media is having an impact upon the way in which people live out their faith online and offline. Two days into Lent, this is a particularly relevant survey given the number of people who have decided to give up social networking for the duration.

It’s not something I particularly agree with – partly because of the results of this survey. Sure, if social networking is distracting you from working, studying or living in the ‘real world’ to the point of unhealthiness, then create boundaries, but will a 40 day fast really change your long-term attitude? But what about the role it has in our spiritual lives? Nurturing relationships; being challenged; asking and receiving prayer; staying up to date with international situations; learning new things – all of this now happens via social networks. Vicky Beeching spoke my mind on this subject in a blogpost yesterday entitled: ‘Why I disagree with giving up social media for Lent’.

One of the things I’m becoming increasingly passionate about is the importance of churches and Christians using social media effectively. (Actually, I’m passionate about everyone using it effectively, it’s just that most of the time I’m talking about this within church-y circles. Most of what follows will apply to the rest of the world too.) I don’t simply mean in a marketing sense, but primarily in a building community way. I’d almost go as far as to say that a Facebook/Twitter presence is as essential to a church as a decent website is.

So I thought now might be a good time to share a few tips for individuals and groups on why they should care about their social media presence – and why, possibly, they should join Twitter. [Disclaimer: I am a massive Twitter fan. It isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it is worth a go – honest!]

1. Cross-platform consolidation
Let’s start with something that sounds pretentious, but is actually very sensible. If you’re a church/organisation, then create social media presences that work well together. Just like an individual might have Facebook, Twitter and a blog, so might a church have a Facebook page, Twitter feed and website. Make sure that you put the same information through all of them. You may think it’s pointless because it’s the same audience, but it’s not and the information can be used in different ways on each. On Twitter, for example, a church member might choose to retweet a church announcement so their followers can hear about it – something that’s harder to do with a Facebook status.NB: If you’re going to do an auto-feed from one platform to another, make sure you do it from Twitter to Facebook, not the other way round. Feeding Facebook to Twitter doesn’t always work, because if the update exceeds 140 characters, you’ll be directed to a Facebook page – fine if you have a Facebook account, rubbish if you don’t.

2. Save time by setting up auto-updates
There’s plenty of ways of doing this – some Twitter apps enable scheduled posting, so you can decide when you want something to go out. This means you can set things up even if you’re going to be on holiday, so Sunday services announcements can still go out, even if you’re not online one week. Our church’s website automatically sends out a tweet whenever new sermon audio is uploaded. [If you’re wondering about what a church Twitter account could post, the themes of Sunday talks and links to their audio would be a really good place to start.] Other platforms, like Flickr, will auto-Tweet whenever you add new content too.

3. Have a small team of people with access to your social media accounts
It’s kind of a simple rule of delegation really, but also means that it’s all dependent upon one person being at everything and online all the time. Mobile devices are particularly useful for this as it’s much easier to switch between Twitter accounts on an iPhone than on a computer (I currently have 4, this may be excessive…). This can also work by an individual person following lots of church people on Twitter, and being on the ball enough to re-tweet their stuff when relevant. You can also add specific accounts – so I now have a student Twitter in addition to the main church one and we complement each other, re-tweeting as appropriate.

4. Keep things private when they need to be private
The Tearfund research emphasises the ways in which Christians use social media for prayer requests. Some people are happy to share via very public forums like Twitter or Facebook, but others might want a safer space in which to do this. A church Facebook Page might work for certain things, but a closed group might be more appropriate for others – this worked brilliantly with my student group last year and I’ve just set up something similar for this year’s. I also belong to a brilliant women’s prayer group on Facebook which has become a place for sharing some really tough stuff, but also for reading truly inspiring stories. Having said that, it’s astonishing just how quickly a prayer request can get round the Twitter community – truly stunning and a really valuable asset of that network.

5. Use hashtags
This may sound solely Twitter related, but it’s not. For those not in the know, a hashtag is a way of grouping together tweets – placing ‘#’ before something on Twitter turns it into a hyperlink through which you can see all other tweets mentioning the same thing. For example, the Greenbelt festival usually goes with #gb12 (or whatever year it happens to be). This is useful for several reasons:

It can create a buzz for an event and help people see who else is there and what’s going on.

It enables people to bring together all the tweets from one event and store them for posterity.

It can be used to create ‘Twitter falls’ in other places. The Methodist Conference used this to startlingly good effect in 2011. Any tweets containing the hashtag #methconf were displayed on the conference’s main website, alongside the live video feed and papers – meaning that people could join in conversations in real time. [See, it’s not just for Twitter!]

6. Follow what you’re interested in and share what others might like

Treat your organisation like an individual (or, if you’re an individual – be individual!). Follow what you’re interested in – people, places, groups – and share what grabs your attention if you think it might benefit others. For example, social media has been a great place in the last few days to share what people are doing for Lent – I’ve discovered 24-7’s prayer spaces; Tearfund’s carbon fast; Christian Aid’s Count Your Blessings and myriad other initiatives via the people I follow and have passed them on in turn. If you have a church account, follow your members and engage with their lives (within suitable boundaries, obviously), but aim to inspire them too. With my student Twitter account I have two weekly aims – firstly, to keep student Twitterers informed on what we’re up to and share our doings; and secondly, to share at least one inspiring thought from our gatherings. The latter is something that often gets picked up by the people who follow us, so in turn (hopefully) inspires others.

I could talk for hours about the joys of social media and there’s plenty more to say on this subject, but I think this will do for now. In fact, friends have started booking me for personal social media surgeries, which I’m more than happy to do (though I apologise to those sat near me on Eurostar when the woman sat next to me grilled me about Twitter from London to Lille…). It’s well worth investing the time and effort – honest!

Something has got my goat in quite a big way – in fact, it got my goat quite a long time ago, but now I actually want to do something about it.

I love social media and social networking dearly. I write a blog(s); I tweet – probably too much; my life is organised via Facebook; heck, I’ve even spent time teaching people how to use it better. It’s definitely a good thing in my opinion, as long as it’s used with care and thought. The problem is that we are humans, and sometimes we’re not careful or thoughtful.

There are trolls (as they’re known) across the internet. Recently, there’s been a lot of coverage of the hideous comments many women receive on blogs or articles, simply because they’re women – especially if they’re writing on an issue that seems to be ‘feminist’ in nature. But they’re everywhere, from newspaper columns to blogs and random Facebook pages. Oh, and Twitter – there’s nothing like Twitter for a vicious, insult strewn argument…

I’m not naïve, I know that everyone gets annoyed or upset and does things that maybe, if they’d thought more about, they wouldn’t have done. This applies just as much to the internet as it does to the real world. Nor am I perfect – I’ve made mistakes just like everyone else. However, I have higher expectations of good online behaviour from my Christian brethren (perhaps that is naïve?), after all, isn’t the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as yourself?

Is bitching about other Christians in a public forum an example of following this commandment?

What about haranguing an individual just because you’re fed up with the (Christian) organisation they work for?

What if the people making the comments are ordained? Shouldn’t they know better more than anyone else? [In every single case that’s recently got my goat, the person concerned has been ordained.]

My goat has been severely got over the last few weeks. Time and again I’ve seen examples of this behaviour and last week it made me so angry that I wrote an original version of this post, just so I could do some cathartic venting. Some good friends read it and said that, once I’d removed the specifics, it might make for a helpful blogpost – so this is it.

In a Facebook thread where some of the worst behaviour was found, came a response that actually proved inspiring:

“To say it’s ok to discuss xxxxxxx, as though they are not also a brother or a sister, someone who will flourish best with edification, support and respectful engagement kinda defeats the whole point of battling through a life of faith.

It is not ok to malign people as though they were not human, let alone fellow believers working, to the best of their knowledge, for the good of the Kingdom. There is a marked difference between expressing feelings of dissatisfaction and seeking solutions with like-minded people and aggressively hurling abuse!”

I’d also like to challenge the people making these negative comments.
Would they say these things in front of the people they’re insulting? Have they thought about how people would feel after reading some of their posts? Have they considered how they might feel if they read something similar about themselves?

Ultimately, what is it about social media that people feel gives them permission to behave in a way that they wouldn’t do in ‘real life’? And, how, as Christians do we encourage others not to behave in this way? How do we demonstrate Christian love and relationship in a virtual context?

I don’t necessarily have the answers to these questions, but I thought they’d provoke some thought and possibly discussion. Interestingly, on the day when I needed to vent, a post along similar lines to this was published on the Big Bible blog, so other people are thinking about it too. In the mean time, perhaps the best approach is to challenge behaviour that isn’t appropriate – like my friend above did – and put ourselves alongside those who are being attacked. Oh, and to not press ‘send’ in haste…